Tulane University awarded $2 million to expand minority access to cancer trials

New $2 million grant will help increase the number of minority patients enrolled in clinical trials for new cancer therapies.

Tulane University School of Medicine will use a $2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to increase the number of minority patients enrolled in clinical trials for new cancer therapies.

The Minority-Based Community Clinical Oncology Program (MB-CCOP) grant is part of a national effort to support community-based cancer trials that bring in racial and ethnic groups typically underrepresented in clinical research. Tulane’s MB-CCOP is one of 17 across the country

“The grant helps to supplement the cost to open new clinical research studies and greatly expands the number of treatment and prevention trials to which our local cancer patients will now have access,” said Dr. William “Rusty” Robinson, head of Gynecologic Oncology at Tulane.

Tulane’s MB-CCOP grant will support clinical research coordinators to work directly with physicians treating patients at Tulane Cancer Center, Tulane-Lakeside Clinic, the Veteran’s Administration Hospital, Tulane’s Clinic at the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans and Tulane’s oncology affiliates, a group of private physicians throughout the region that offer access to Tulane’s cancer research trials. The coordinators, who will have special expertise in cultural sensitivity, will assist the physicians in identifying patients who qualify for enrollment into cancer treatment trials, as well as work one-on-one with patients and family members to answer questions about clinical research.

“This approach has been proven successful in helping to overcome historic barriers that have prevented minority accruals to clinical research trials in the past,” Robinson said.

The grant also will support a patient/community educator who will promote the program’s cancer prevention studies to both patients within Tulane’s system of community and primary care clinics and the broader community through outreach to local churches and organizations.

For more information on cancer treatment trials available through Tulane’s MB-CCOP program or to enroll in a cancer prevention trial, please call 504-988-6121.